No one in their right mind would take Thailand at face value. The Thais certainly don’t.

Anyone who believes the “mai pen rai”, grengjai , lovey-dovey land of smiles” rhetoric need only be in the kingdom a few days to realize that rose tinted specs require rebar reinforcement in Rattanakosin.

Thais, in my experience, are almost honor bound to expound the virtues of their race and culture especially to outsiders. They don’t really believe this unless they are simple – and I have never thought the people in Thailand are simple.

Many thousands of defeats to Thais at English language Scrabble have seen to that.

Many foreigners haven’t grasped that the Thais are constantly analyzing themselves. And plenty really hate their own country with a passion.

The xenophobes – and there are plenty on a site like Thaivisa – imagine that the Thais believe everything is hunky dory and foreigners are to blame for their woes.

Twaddle. The great majority of Thais – albeit lawless and often highly irresponsible – are no fools. They distrust their politicians and their police with a fanatical zeal, and for very good reason. In their heart of hearts they shake their heads at the injustice, lawlessness and mayhem that abounds.

Then tell the tourists and anyone gullible enough who will listen about all the good things from yummy food to mountains, golden beaches to kindness. You name it, it’s all good….

The trick to understanding Thailand a little better is to sort the wheat from the chaff. There really is so much good here but denying the dark underbelly does not help with that realization.

On the contrary, it is the comparing of the bad with the good that makes life in the kingdom worthwhile and gives one a proper perspective on which to base a life.

Thailand may be a house of cards but such a structure has attractive bits that are still standing when the wind from an open door has knocked down some of its parts.

This week the Thai news was full to bursting with outrageous acts, crazy behavior both heinous and hilarious – so why do I feel at its end that I could never live anywhere else?

Yes, I may be barking – at the least, infatuated; but I do know I am not alone in loving Thailand.

The fermented fish factory was ordered to solve the problem – I would suggest not cleaning the drains or not pressing the flush for a few weeks, that could tone it down a bit.

Pla Ra is one of a small number of foods that I have never tried and never will. While I admonish my four year old daughter for saying she doesn’t like something she has never tried I don’t mind being decidedly two faced about the issue myself.

I fit in well in Thailand.

Rooster prefers Indian food over Thai. One of the reasons for this was that I taught Thai cooking at international school and on some days I was obliged to sample up to 80 Green Curries or Tom Yam Kung that the Year 8 children had made for their homework and brought in for me to taste and grade.

Try it if you want to go off something.

At home Mrs Rooster eats Loei and me and the kids feast on Branston and Shreddies. Even on the same plate that would be better than some of the things she puts in her elegant bouche.

While appreciating why the traffic in my area would make anyone lose it, it still beggared belief that my local cops could only fine the driver 100 baht for the knife. Pa Ngem deserved at least that for being dressed as a Flower Pot Man.

I passed Pahonyothin police station on my bike doing a cheeky shortcut as the news media and TV crews were all there for a briefing. You had to laugh – the cops had set up a police memorabilia stand to sell knick-knacks to reporters.

Hardly a crime – but certainly opportunistic!

Another road rage incident from February has resulted in Suthep the engineer being charged with murder in the death of a menacing teen.

Like taking Thailand at face value, to do the same with Suthep, as many posters did believing him to be defending his family, is wide of the mark.

It reminds me of Tony Martin the farmer in the UK who shot an intruder and received much public sympathy when he was convicted.

Until it emerged that tooled up Tony had laid in wait at the top of the stairs for the opportunity to blast away a young, though admittedly thieving, life.

The parallels with Suthep – armed in his car as all too many are in Thailand – are too obvious to ignore.

Big Too was having tea and muffins with Hun Sen, that paragon of Cambodian neighborly virtue, while His Blandness Prawit was enraged when the press started asking those tiresome and highly irregular things called searching questions about younger sis.

As Catherine Tate would say “How very Dare you!” – insubordination in the reporting ranks.

Secretly, Prayuth was irked that Taksin had a higher in-office approval rating while no one really cared about Prawit who bravely suffers the highest ugliness rating since recently acquitted PM Chavalit.

Despite an admittedly flimsy sounding denial, the Chiang Mai yank was deemed guilty and condemned to enjoy the attentions of the sex starved Thai men who the hang ‘em high brigade believe are always waiting inside for what the Americans might call “fresh farang fanny”.

It emerged that many people didn’t want said monk to become the next abbot so he was taken to a short time hotel for a bit of impromptu defrocking and photography with the naked woman to use for blackmail purposes.

Of course, not a soul asked any awkward questions about the morality of all these shenanigans and no one will be in the least surprised that the chapel at the temple will soon have a new roof.

And so to this week’s Rooster awards. My “Comment of the Week” prize goes to LotusBoy who was remarking on the story about the locals in the tiny village in Pangnga who expressed surprise that tourists no longer wanted to visit after around half the male population were accused of raping a 14 year old:

“That’s like Susan Boyle coming out of Gregg’s and the next customer saying – who ate all the pies?”

While my “Entrepreneur Without a Business Plan” is awarded jointly. Firstly, to the myriad forum posters who thought it would be a great idea to dob their neighbors into the authorities to claim half the 10,000 baht fine for illegally placing objects on the road to reserve parking spots.